Life's a drag for Wedding star

By Neil Smith
BBC News Online

Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette play the title roles in Connie and Carla

Connie and Carla, the new comedy from Nia Vardalos, the writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, has just opened in the UK.

Wedding was the surprise comedy hit of 2002, making more than $600m (£326m) and landing Vardalos a best original screenplay Oscar nomination.

The story of a frumpy Greek-American waitress who falls in love with a handsome non-Greek man touched a chord with audiences around the world.

Until The Passion of the Christ was released earlier this year, it was the most successful independently-produced film.

But it proved a tough act to follow, as Vardalos discovered when her TV sitcom spin-off - entitled My Big Fat Greek Life - was cancelled after one series.

Undeterred, the 41-year-old actress has bounced back with another self-penned romantic comedy, this time set in the flamboyant world of Los Angeles drag queens.

Transvestites

In Connie and Carla, Vardalos and Australian co-star Toni Collette play lounge singers who, having witnessed a mob killing, go undercover by pretending to be male transvestites.

Their ruse is an unexpected success. Not only do their song-and-dance routines make them the hottest act in town, but Connie (Vardalos) finds she has a new admirer - Jeff (David Duchovny), the heterosexual brother of a fellow drag queen.

Vardalos spent two hours in make-up daily for her draq queen role

Vardalos admits she had little experience of drag queen life when she first came up with the idea.

"I was in a world I did not know at all, so I went out and did a lot of research," she says.

"I asked this beautiful drag queen, resplendent in yellow feathers, why she did what she did.

"She said: 'It's the one night of the week I feel fabulous.' Who can't relate to that?"

Vardalos also had help from an unexpected source: Duchovny himself, who played a cross-dressing DEA detective in cult TV series Twin Peaks.

"I told everyone I'd done drag before and I even brought in the tape," says the 43-year-old actor, best known for his role as special agent Fox Mulder in The X Files.

I recommend it for all girls and boys out there: put on a pair of fishnet stockings and find your inner sexiness Nia Vardalos

"I showed it in my trailer to show that I too could shave my legs for money."

However, Duchovny was not required to draw on his previous experience to play the role of Connie's confused new beau.

"They wouldn't let me dress up, and thank God they didn't let me sing!"

'Sexy'

For Vardalos, the film had an unforeseen effect on her marriage to actor Ian Gomez, who has small roles in both My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Connie and Carla.

"I felt so sexy!" she explains. "It was really strange for me and lovely for my husband.

"I recommend it for all girls and boys out there: put on a pair of fishnet stockings and find your inner sexiness."

Vardalos both wrote and acted in My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Sadly, cinema audiences in America have yet to heed Vardalos' call.

Some critics have accused the film of stereotyping homosexuals, while its first weekend takings of $3.26m (£1.8m) meant it entered the US box office chart outside the Top 10.

But the writer and actress remains upbeat. "You only get one life so you might as well make it a happy one," she says.

"That's why I tend to just jump into things. I'm sort of a fearless idiot that way."

And having been plucked from obscurity by Tom Hanks, whose initial support as producer was crucial to My Big Fat Greek Wedding's success, Vardalos is keen to spread her good fortune around.

"I'm trying to mentor new writers," she says. "What happened to me was completely random, so I feel I'd like to do that for somebody else."

Connie and Carla is out in the UK on 11 June.